Counting Costs

The damage that has been done by flooding in the Midwest is only beginning to be assessed. But damages will certainly run into the billions.

WINFIELD, Mo. – Farmhouses appear to float on lakes, and farmers use boats to get to their barns. Businesses are shuttered as flooded roadways cut off customers. Rail lines, factories, river locks are shut down. Homeowners, who watched and waited and prayed, have seen dreams drowned.

After weeks of flooding through Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and Wisconsin, billions of dollars in damage are adding up from dozens of flooded towns, shaky bridges, overwhelmed utilities, and thousands of evacuees.

But the misery index from the Great Flood of 2008 has only started to sink in.

The real damage will be done in future months as food prices soar. Where I live there are still cornfields completely underwater – there will be no crops from those fields. Many others that did not flood outright look wrong. The leaves on the corn is yellow, not the deep green it should be and the plants are only inches high – far too small for this time of year. Yields from those fields will be greatly reduced.